Normally, when he settled down to contemplate a question or mystery, answers would come to him in time. This was not the case with whatever was happening in the wilds; every trip only brought more questions. Lucifer didn't like having a heap of questions with no answers. Much of his life had been spent in the pursuit of information, and the practice of ways to obtain that information. Skills in stealth and observation were not helping him with this, however, and he wasn't quite sure what to do when his specialties failed him.

For the moment, he lay there in the ash, as if waiting for something to happen. The new growth he'd encountered so far seemed to sprout and spread quickly, so he wondered if he might witness it from the beginning if he was just patient enough.

Rolling wildsevent 1d13: 4
An eerie blue flame seems to appear and hover before you. It’s almost like it wants you to follow it. Will you see where it leads you or turn your back on it?

code by corvus || art by loki

with the surly, antisocial company she were wont to keep, strife were an inevitability she’d come to know and accept after the first several incidents. and though any wiser, more self-preserving creature might have severed the ties of unrequited friendship after the first affront, lyra had been quick to forgive, and even quicker to pull inspiration from the damage her eight-legged friends inflicted upon her. at times, the lingering effects of their bites had her writhing in pain; at others, they administered mild irritants that left her, scratching at the source, for hours on end. she had since learned to curb the frequency of the punishments they readily dealt with better handling, but her curiosities still ran, rampant and unchecked. if there were a way she could harness the strange after-effects of her spiders’ bites, she were determined to do just that.

trial and error found her own fangs, sorely lack of the torturous something that made mean foes of the little friends she so admired. if she were to mimic their methodology, the frei were made certain that their tricks were not inherent to she or those of her species. she’d had need to outsource her spiders’ secret weapon where she could, if she could; and, thankfully, she’d heard whispers on the wind as to the potency of various plants, scattered about their peninsula. it took only one such claim to find lyra back amongst the greenery of the jungle with a pipe dream and unwarranted confidence in her random selections.

a novice without a handy pouch in which to store her supplies, the sunspot foolishly clenched her findings between the teeth as she scoured. aside from the bitter taste of the stems from a red-berried treasure and the faint numbing effects from another golden, she remained largely unaffected — for now, anyway. the further she ventured, however, the more sidetracked she became, and soon enough, she were caught drifting after wafts of ash and sulfur along the fringes of the jungle.

a pained wince contorted her features as she neared the epicenter of devastation and smoke clawed at her eyes, but she dare not lose sight of her main objective and discard of her collection. rather, she tightened her hold about the stems before pressing onward against better logic: squinting through the haze and the burn it fostered to sate her ever-growing curiosity. before long, her diligence were rewarded as a silhouette emerged from the fog; and yet, it were not @Lucifer, himself, that forced her to an abrupt standstill.

— it were the magnificent flame he conjured.

awe-stricken, lyra relinquished the hold upon her prizes against her own volition. the curious plants quickly fanned out across the ashen earth at her feet as her jaw fell, slack, and her eyes darted between flame and presumed sorcerer. at last, her pupils were made to fixate upon the colored wisp as it bobbed and weaved before its master. “how..?” she breathed, a whisper surely swallowed by the distance yet lingering between them. but as she swayed amongst the ruin, indignation simmered from deep within to surface in an accusatory: “you did this?” and a forepaw swept in gesture to the charred remnants of a once-bountiful wood. why?

_{BG — ART — CODE}